Articles

Hi Everyone,

Well sorry it has been a few days but I had wrote a blog yesterday and due to computer errors it failed to post but here we are today :)

So let me tell you of the the first few days in the UK starting with my nice smooth departure from America or better to say the lack of.  I left work at 3am Friday morning to go pack and get a practice in before I made my way to the airport at 10am, at least that was the plan......

So I was on my way home thinking I had not seen my passport in a bit so I walked into the house rather tired as I had ran a few medical calls in the night before leaving eary(normally work 24hrs on) to find my passport and maybe a short nap.  Well I reached up on to the shelf where I normally keep it and it is missing.  Hmm, I vaguely remember that I saw in on top of the fridge so off I go to get it and yup you guessed it NO PASSPORT.  Now my heart begins to quicken as I am such a creature of habit that I have now no idea where to look for it.  I am fully awake now and as the moments pass panic is beginning to set in.  Two hours later my house is literally torn apart, the closets are all empty, the bed is tossed off to the side, the couch cushions are every where and I am in TOTAL FREAK OUT mode.  My thoughts jump to that I will need to fly to Canada to get another passport in person so I can still make it to the Ally Pally on time.
So now it is almost 5am and I have to enlist some help before I just crawl into a ball on the floor ;) so I call my good friend and wake her to just be told "calm down it is not that big of a dea.l"   NOT A BIG DEAL!?!!?!!  "It is the hugest deal I scream back I have to make it to the World Championships now come help me!"  Well 20 mins later she arrives and starts to laugh at the state of my house and asks where I normally keep it.  About 5 mins pass and she walks over and says " you mean this passport?" with a sly smile.  It was still on the fridge but once panic had set in I could no longer see the obvious ;)  Relieved as a huge smile comes to my face so she was rewarded with a big hug and she was off to go back to bed.

So fast forward to my final leg of the journey from Houston to Heathrow, I now feel my luck has turned as I get a whole row to myself so sleep is in top order for me.  Reach into my bag to get out the sleep aid as it is only 4pm and my arrival time 6am UK (7hrs ahead for me) so I need some help to sleep.....no sleep aid.  In my haste putting my house back together I had forgot to pack it.....by the time the next day had ended I had only had 5 hrs sleep in 48hr period.  Needless to say I was sleeping everywhere when I was at the darts on Sunday ;)

So I was met Saturday by my friend Ben Burton at the airport,  I had met Ben on my first trip over a few years back as he owned a pub where I had won a little local shoot at.  He informed my of the days plans and that Wayne Mardle was having a exhibition that night which he wanted to attend.  I said since if I get passed my first round I play Wayne I did not feel it was a good deal to go hang out with him LOL.

We spent the day playing a blind draw pairs and singles at the Jubilee Social Club where we both had a good day.  ben managed to win the pairs knocking me out in the semis and we both reached the semi finals of the singles.  I was feeling good as I had played well all day and finished very well but ran into a very talented local player who did me in 3-2 with some great darts.  The longest game we had was 15 and he took out 3 116+ outs on me while I was on a double so he earned the victory fair and square.

The Sunday saw us travel a hour and half down to Chichester Snooker Club on the southern coast of England.  I had barely got out of bed when I was informed it was time to leave to the event that promised to pay 500 pounds to the winner and have a lot of good players in attendance.  It did not dissapoint as when I walked in the first face I saw was Andy Jenkins (PDC #18) and Paul Nicholson from Australia along with 15 other PDC members.  There was about 10 boards and it was a min 4 deep on each board so by no means about to be a walk in the park.  My first match was againist a local top shooter Paul who I must have made a bit nervous as he had me dead to rights 3-0 but allowed me to get a shot at the double to save my life.  I slowly began to find a rhythm and was able to fight him off 3-2.  I started to play really well and found myself up againist Andy Jenkins in the top 8, short story is 4 missed darts in the fifth leg and I was sent to the tables to have a nap :)  Andy went on to win in fine form with Ben Burton reaching the Semi finals himself that day.

I am now up in Stoke on Trent and had a great sleep last night to do some practice with the big guns of Stoke as a final push for this weekend.  I am staying with my friend Roger (www.dartshirt.co.uk) for a few days and back to London Wed night or Thursday am to meet up with Darin Young from the USA.

See you at the ALLY PALLY